


just polyester

by frougge



Category: LOONA (Korea Band)
Genre: F/F, Friends to friends, Kim Jungeun | Kim Lip-centric, Roommates, Unrequited Love, lip chuu yves heejin nd jinsoul all live together, sad sappy shit . all i can say
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-31
Updated: 2020-03-31
Packaged: 2021-02-23 02:28:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23404291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frougge/pseuds/frougge
Summary: “I think it makes sense.”And Jiwoo turns to her, then, her eyes crinkling at the corners into the most genuine smile Jungeun’s ever seen, and Jungeun can practically feel the love between them gather in the atmosphere, can feel how sickly sweet it would taste on her lips, can almost feel how soft it’d be to the touch, like one of the countless sweaters Jiwoo owns.“I knew you’d get it,” Jiwoo says and it sounds almost like a code to Jungeun’s ears. “You get me.”
Relationships: Ha Sooyoung | Yves/Kim Jiwoo | Chuu, Kim Jiwoo | Chuu/Kim Jungeun | Kim Lip (unrequited)
Comments: 26
Kudos: 71





	just polyester

**Author's Note:**

> there's a playlist for this au you can find [here](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/600DTlbjT3y900FJ3Jpjbr?si=GIw6EhTBSSe9cr6EDDSp2g)
> 
> the title comes from heather by conan gray

There’s a rhythm to the way the moon rises over the earth, every night to no avail, in the same way that there’s a rhythm to the way Jungeun’s heart beats steady in her chest to thoughts of Jiwoo.

.

“I think I’m a little in love with all of you,” Jiwoo confesses, long into the night, laughter high on her breath and her cheeks flushed from all the shitty cocktails they’ve mixed up and drank maybe twenty minutes earlier. Jungeun’s a bit too busy trying to keep her mind clear to chastise her heart for flipping in her chest at that, to stop the bit of hope from gathering on her skin. “Like. Just a little bit.”

“And this is your confession?” Sooyoung says, leaning heavily on Jiwoo, hair matted to her forehead. “I think we deserve a better one, personally.”

“That was kinda shit, if you ask me,” Jinsoul pipes in, from where she’s swaying on her feet a few steps ahead of them. They’ve decided to leave the apartment for a short stroll—not a good idea, they’ll realize in the morning, after Heejin drapes her jacket over the back of a bench and leaves it there—but the cold air is calming, now, the wind helping sober Jungeun up before she does something stupid like confess.

“It’s not a confession,” Jiwoo says. She pushes Sooyoung away and throws her arm around Jungeun, tugging her into the crook of her arm, having to rise on her toes to do so properly, and that almost seems confession enough. “It’s just—an observation.”

“An observation,” Sooyoung echoes. “Sure, right. I’d say that, too, if I got rejected.”

Heejin barks out laughter into the night, followed closely by Jinsoul’s giggles. It’s too late for this, Jungeun thinks, straining to keep a grasp on her consciousness. They’re bout to get a noise complaint for this—and maybe it’d be better if they were in the safety of their apartment.

“It’s just,” Jiwoo starts, before words seem to fail her and she falls quiet, the only sounds on the street becoming the infrequent passing cars and Jinsoul’s failed attempts at a hushed conversation with Heejin. Jungeun doesn’t know how long it is before she speaks again, her voice a bit more serious, “I think it’s simple, isn’t it? I’m not—I’m not in love with any of you, that’s not what I mean, but…”

“But you’re a little in love with all of us?” Sooyoung offers, sending Jungeun an amused look.

“You’re being mean again.”

“Am not.”

“Are too!” Jiwoo says, reaching to push Sooyoung again. Her arm slips off of Jungeun’s shoulders but she doesn’t seem to pay it any mind, fingers finding salvation in Sooyoung’s jacket, twisting into the leather. “I’m just—when we’re together, like right now, for example, I can’t imagine anything better than this. I can’t imagine feeling better with anyone else. I can’t imagine willingly hanging out with anyone other than you, than blowing you guys off for a hot date.”

“You wouldn’t have to blow us off,” Jungeun tries not to preen at the way Jiwoo looks at her, eyes wide against the dark of her hair, stars reflected cleanly in them. “Even if you were—even if you got into a relationship, you wouldn’t have to blow us off.”

Jiwoo rolls her eyes, “you’re missing the point entirely,” she whines, “I’m not saying—I’m saying I can’t—I’m saying I won’t feel better with anyone else. I’m saying if I were to be with someone long enough to warrant moving in together, I wouldn’t because I don’t want to leave our apartment behind. I don’t want to leave you guys behind.”

“I don’t think that constitutes being in love with someone,” Sooyoung says. She reaches to brush Jiwoo’s bangs out of her eyes—they’ve been due for a trim for a while now—and her own gaze is startlingly familiar to Jungeun. “You love us, yeah, definitely, but that’s not… it’s not the same.”

“You don’t know that,” Jiwoo whines, again, pressing her forehead into Sooyoung’s shoulder. “It goes deeper than that, I’d say.”

“You’d say a lot of things,” Sooyoung says. Jungeun tries not to feel like she’s intruding, despite all the nerves in her body telling her she is. “I can see what you’re trying to say, though. I think. Maybe not completely, but like, I get at least part of it.”

Jungeun clears her throat. “Yeah,” she manages, feeling Sooyoung’s eyes snap to look at her as if she’d forgotten Jungeun was besides them in the first place. “I think it makes sense.”

And Jiwoo turns to her, then, her eyes crinkling at the corners into the most genuine smile Jungeun’s ever seen, and Jungeun can practically feel the love between them gather in the atmosphere, can feel how sickly sweet it would taste on her lips, can almost feel how soft it’d be to the touch, like one of the countless sweaters Jiwoo owns.

“I knew you’d get it,” Jiwoo says and it sounds almost like a code to Jungeun’s ears. “You get me.”

“I get you,” Jungeun replies, giving Jiwoo her hand when Jiwoo reaches out for it, letting her intertwine their fingers together and tug her close. The moment only lasts a short while—interrupted by Heejin hollering something from the back—but it’s enough to spill a litre of gasoline onto Jungeun’s heart, keeping it burning.

.

Jungeun does get what Jiwoo means, a few days later, when she’s lying alone in her room, silence pressing down on the corners of her mind. She’s a bit in love with all her friends, too, maybe, with the way they laugh and bicker and fill the room with noise whenever they’re together. With the way they’ve all grown accustomed to each other’s small habits, the way they’ve gotten used to living together over the past years, squeezing five people into a two- or maybe three-person apartment. It’s all in the little things, in the way Heejin brews enough coffee in the morning to last all of them or the way Jinsoul makes sure to buy the snacks Jungeun likes or the way Sooyoung buys cute little trinkets that remind her of them every once in a while, placing them around the apartment and pretending they’re of no importance to anyone.

It’s—it’s different with Jiwoo, though; it’s always been and always will be, probably. It’s different when Jiwoo tugs a blanket over Jungeun’s shoulders when she falls asleep on the couch, different when Jiwoo’s the one to prepare her tea, making it too sweet (three spoonfuls of sugar and a bit of honey in place of two spoonfuls of sugar and no honey at all), when Jiwoo slips her hand into Jungeun’s as if it’s second nature.

It feels like more, then. It feels like it means more to both sides, with the way Jiwoo looks at her, sometimes, the way Jungeun can feel Jiwoo’s eyes on her, drawing patterns into her skin. It feels like it means more to both sides and, maybe, just maybe—

.

“So?” Jungeun overhears Heejin say as she finishes washing her face in the sink, squeezing out moisturizer onto her fingertips to massage into her skin. “What’s the verdict? Are you going to do it?”

Jiwoo whines something in response, voice going high pitched enough that Jungeun can’t make out the words through the walls. It doesn’t stop the smile from slipping onto her face, though; Jiwoo sounds embarrassed enough to erupt into flames in any second.

“Come on,” Heejin says. “Don’t pussy out of it, now.”

“I’m not—you sound like some disgusting frat boy,” Jiwoo replies. “Are you coming out as misogynistic? Is that what this is?”

Jungeun slips the towel off her hair, hanging it up. She drags her fingers through it, untangling it gently, feeling water drip down the back of her neck. It’s cold, startling, almost like the brush of fingers against skin, and Jungeun shivers unwillingly.

“I’m just making sure you keep up your resolution,” Heejin says and Jungeun mentally goes through Jiwoo’s list of resolutions for the year. “You said you wanted to do it before the end of the month.”

“I say a lot of things,” Jiwoo says, nervous giggles rising in the air. Jungeun frowns, parting her hair in the mirror and half-heartedly brushing her brush through her hair. “It’s just—it’s hard to find a good time, though. You know what I mean.”

“I know this isn’t about finding a good time to say it.” Jungeun tugs on her hair, finding a knot in it, practically feeling the hair follicles slip out of her scalp as she does so. “This is about you being afraid of her reaction.”

“Nooo, that’s not it, it’s—”

“—it is,” Heejin insists, “it is, and I _get it,_ because I was pissing my pants before asking Jinsoul out, but, you know. This is all part of the process.”

“You sound insane.”

“You know I’m right, though,” Jungeun can practically see Heejin’s self-satisfied expression, can see the way her smug grin is stretched across her lips. “You know I’m right and that you’ve gotta ask her out. I mean, what’s the worst that can happen?”

Jungeun’s focus slips out of her fingers enough so that whatever Jiwoo says next blends together into useless word vomit, the letters of each word slurring together. It’s on Jungeun, definitely, seeing as she accidentally drops the hair brush, too, seeing as her head won’t stop pounding, the balls of her palms sweating as she wipes them on her sweats.

Maybe—just maybe—

She bites down on her smile, stifles down the hope that’s rising in her chest, and blocks out the rest of Heejin and Jiwoo’s conversation.

.

She lets herself hope, though, later that same day, when they’re all gathered in the living room, Jungeun and Jiwoo sprawled out on the couch and cuddling, fitting together like this is how it’s meant to be. Heejin on the floor, her back propped against the couch, while Jinsoul falls asleep in one of the armchairs and Sooyoung plays on her phone in the other.

She lets herself hope because Jiwoo presses her cheek to her shoulder, to the skin that’s exposed by the large neckline of her shirt, before pressing her lips to the same spot in a light kiss. Her fingers trail on Jungeun’s hand, too, light, almost as if Jungeun’s imagining the whole thing.

She lets herself hope that she’s not just projecting the whole thing, lets herself hope that they both feel what she’s feeling in that moment, that both their hearts are pounding so hard they can hear the blood flow past their ears.

And, maybe, just maybe, they both do.

.

“I’m going to ask out Sooyoung,” Jiwoo says, and Jungeun almost drops the jar of honey she’s holding. She manages not to, passing it off as—well. Maybe she doesn’t do a particularly good job of passing it off as anything, but it’s not like that matters; Jiwoo’s staring at the kitchen table, tracing designs on it offhandedly, instead of looking at her anyway.

“Sooyoung?” Jungeun asks, setting the honey down on the counter and turning to focus fully on Jiwoo, the tea already at the back of her mind, almost forgotten. “Like, _our_ Sooyoung?”

“Do you know any other Sooyoungs?”

“I—the one who went to middle school with us?” Jungeun says and Jiwoo shakes her head, unable to hide her smile as she looks up to meet Jungeun’s eyes. “Or—well, I did have that coworker named Sooyoung, so…”

“I’m going to ask out our Sooyoung,” Jiwoo amends, sitting up in her chair.

“Like, today?”

“Uh,” Jiwoo stammers, flattening her fingers against the table. “Maybe?” She says after a moment, “probably not, though. I’m just… I’m still gearing up towards it.”

“As if it has any chance of going sour,” Jungeun pushes past her lips, thinking of the way Sooyoung looks at Jiwoo. Does Jiwoo look at her the same way? “Don’t tell me you’re scared of it.”

“Of course I’m scared of it,” Jiwoo whines, petulant, lips sticking out in a pout. “It’s—I’m going to be laying myself out bare for her. I think that’s reason enough to be scared.”

“It’s Sooyoung, though,” Jungeun reasons, “she’s not going to—I don’t know. Even in the unlikely case that she rejects you, she’s not going to be mean about it or anything.”

It sounds forced, to Jungeun’s ears. It sounds forced because Jungeun doesn’t mean it, not in the least, because if Jinsoul or Heejin or Sooyoung gave her this advice if she were to even begin thinking of asking out Jiwoo, she’d laugh at them, because how stupid is that? So what if there was a chance Jiwoo reciprocated her feelings, if there was a chance she was going to reject her?

So what if there was a chance Jiwoo reciprocated her feelings—if there was a chance they would actually get together, that all of Jungeun’s dreams would come true, if there was a chance they could very well break-up and nothing between them would ever be the same? Jungeun’s perfectly fine with what they have now, anyway, with low whispers of more that she’s half-sure she’s imagining and gentle touches and friendship that makes love bloom surely in her chest.

The situation’s maybe a bit different now, as everything unfolds in front of her.

“It’d still be rejection,” Jiwoo says. She rests her head on the kitchen table and Jungeun’s half made up her mind to chastise her for it when she adds, “I’m going to try, though. Am hoping that this motivates me a bit to do it.”

“That me knowing motivates you to do it?”

“That more people knowing about it motivates me,” Jiwoo corrects, cheek lightly dusted with pink. Jungeun wonders if it means anything, in the same way that she wonders if the million of small touches between them do, if the million of ways Jiwoo looks at her do. “Heejin’d thought it’d be a good idea. That eventually I’d get embarrassed enough and just blurt it out to her.”

“That’d be—yeah, that does seem likely,” Jungeun says. She bites along the inside of her cheek, because while now, this is fine—she can deal with this. She can deal with Jiwoo wanting to ask out Sooyoung but ultimately not doing anything about it, can deal with her looking the way she does as she talks about Sooyoung, can deal with her slowly slipping from Jungeun’s grasp.

She doesn’t know how she’s going to be able to deal with her dating Sooyoung, though, if it comes to that.

When it comes to that.

“I hope it goes well, though,” she adds, because—because. There’s a million things she could say, a million she wants to, but none are going to stop things from unfolding the way they are. Maybe if she held Jiwoo a little tighter, maybe if she spent more time with her, maybe if she acted more like Sooyoung does, sometimes, vying for Jiwoo’s attention, then maybe it’d be different. Maybe Jiwoo would be gearing to ask her out, would be dreaming of being with her.

She’s not, though.

She’s not, fantasizing instead about Sooyoung, and—Jungeun wants her to be happy, she does, but she’d prefer it immensely if Jiwoo was happy at her side. She’d prefer it immensely if—well. There’s no point to considering that, is there?

.

Jiwoo gets together with Sooyoung two days before Jungeun’s birthday.

It’s stupid to even think of it that way, because surely that was the last thing on both of their minds, and yet Jungeun can’t stop thinking about it. Did Jiwoo think about her, when she asked out Sooyoung? When the confession slipped from her lips, when it mixed into the bitter air? When she and Sooyoung kissed, hands twisting together, everything besides them falling onto the back burner for a few moments?

No, Jungeun knows is the answer. She didn’t.

.

“It’s funny,” Jiwoo giggles right into Jungeun’s neck, wound tight around her, a few months after the ordeal. Sooyoung’s lying on the sofa, head resting comfortably on Jinsoul’s stomach as she struggles to stay awake, the alcohol weighing down her eyelids. “It’s funny, really.”

“What is?” Jungeun asks, turning her head to look at Jiwoo. She’s so close that Jungeun can count her eyelashes, that she could lean down to press her lips to the top of her forehead if she wanted to.

“Sooyoung and I,” Jiwoo says, looking up to meet Jungeun’s eyes, “we got together just before your birthday.”

“Huh,” Sooyoung stirs next to them, legs brushing against Jungeun’s thigh as she shifts in place. “That’s true, yeah.”

“I think you know what this calls for,” Heejin announces, almost making the armchair topple over as she rises on her knees in it, twisting to face the four that are taking up the whole couch.

“Don’t say it,” Jinsoul says. A glance at her reveals the rather stern look she’s sending Heejin—followed immediately by the almost pitiful way her eyes shine when she looks at Jungeun, and—she knows, doesn’t she? She knows and Jungeun’s throat constricts painfully, before Jiwoo skims her fingers, cold, over the back of Jungeun’s neck, and everything else seems trivial.

“Come next year, we’re going to be throwing a joint—uh, what’s it called? A joint birthday-slash-anniversary party, baby!”

“I think anniversaries are only celebrated by the people in the actual relationship,” Sooyoung points out and Jungeun nods her head in agreement almost unconsciously. Something vile rises in her chest at the thought of what Heejin’s suggesting, something vile and disgusting and something that wishes Sooyoung and Jiwoo’s relationship doesn’t last long enough to celebrate it. “The joint birthday party, though? Count me in.”

“I think it’d be sweet,” Jiwoo says. She shares a smile with Sooyoung before pressing her cheek into Jungeun’s shoulder, again, almost more insistently this time, and adding, “don’t you?”

The question burns into Jungeun’s skin. It’s the way everyone’s certain they’re going to last—and they will, most likely, judging only by the way they look at each other, the way both their bodies overflow with love and care and everything else for the other, but Jungeun feels anger pulling at her intestines, feels it press down on her stomach. It’s the way Jiwoo’s still wrapped around her, the way she’s so close, the way Jungeun’s skin burns where Jiwoo’s touching her.

It’s the way Jiwoo still sends her looks that Jungeun can’t decipher, the way some of her actions seem to hold more weight than they should, the way she says some things, every once in a while, that maintain the little seed of hope planted deep into Jungeun’s skin.

“I do,” Jungeun says, because she’s going to take all she can get, after all.

And if all she can get is the small but sincere smile Jiwoo gives her before her head rests on Jungeun’s collarbone, well. It’s not too bad.

**Author's Note:**

> hope u enjoyed !
> 
> come say hi on [twitter](https://twitter.com/frouggyu) // [buy me a ko-fi](https://ko-fi.com/frougge)


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